Love Me Like A Rock (11 page)

* * * * *

The knock on his room door late that night arrived without any snarky Vinnie commentary, so Austin was caught off guard when he called out a “Come in” and Sean was the one who walked through.

He pushed himself up on his elbows from the sprawl he’d fallen into after evening practice, smelling like river water and muck after getting pushed off the dock by Bob for crossing the line from dictator cox to cranky asshole. Which was extra punishing because the water was fucking freezing by this point in December and if it had been deeper than Austin’s waist he might have been in real trouble.

Focus.

Sean closed the door behind him and leaned against it.

“What are you doing here?” Austin asked warily.

Sean winced. “I am here for the sucking up.”

Letting a long silence build seemed like the right answer.

“Are you good at it?” he finally asked.

“I haven’t really done this part before.” Sean shrugged. Looked him in the eye. “Usually it’s just been goodbye. But I don’t want to do that this time.”

This thing where he melted whenever Sean said something nice to him was seriously inconveniencing his rage monster.

“Did you practice?” he demanded, trying to hang onto his outrage, even though it was melting under the steady glow of Sean’s regard as his frigging boyfriend smiled down at him.

“I was supposed to practice?”

Austin sighed, pinning his frown in place. He wanted his groveling, damn it. “I’ll try to keep my expectations low.”

Sean snorted.

“Okay. I was being shortsighted. I said I wanted fucking strings and then I acted like I only meant for as long as it was easy to be together
.
” He ran his fingers through his hair. Sighed. “That’s no way to treat something real. And what we have is definitely real.”

“Really real,” Austin said, knowing it sounded stupid. But this mattered.
Real
mattered.

“Yes. And thinking I was going to be okay with an expiration date was dumb. I think getting to be with you at all felt like the most I could ask for. I didn’t let myself imagine more,” Sean admitted. “But I won’t be ready to let you go at the end of the year, even if I end up halfway around the world. I’m not ever going to be ready to let you go.”

Austin let himself wallow in the sucking up for a moment, then got it together and kept listening, because Sean wasn’t done talking.

“I can’t promise I know where I’ll be next year. We might have to suck it up with some long-distance action. Skype, call, weekend visits, whatever. I’ll try my best to make myself invaluable around the department, but my influence is limited.”

Austin thought of his mother’s influence, but was smart enough to keep that thought locked up tight behind zipped lips. Sean wasn’t intimidated by knowing who Austin’s mom was, but that didn’t mean he wanted to feel like he owed her his job either.

Not that Austin wouldn’t ask her to make a couple of calls. He totally would. But he wouldn’t mention that to Sean. Not now. Not ever.

Sean held himself carefully still and pinned Austin in place with a sharp glance. “I would appreciate a personal commitment from you, Austin Keating, not to call your mom and ask her to fix this.”

Busted.

He totally considered lying, then thought about how severely and for how long he would have to do sucking up of his own if he got caught manipulating things for Sean after specifically promising not to do any such thing.

“God, you have the worst poker face ever. Whatever you’re thinking about is a bad idea, I promise you.”

Maybe. But he’d hold that idea in his back pocket nonetheless.

“So is this how it’s going to be all the time?” Austin demanded. Because this was a lot of drama for the guy who’d been so drama-free until now. Sean, not Austin, obviously. “One of us fucking up and the other one waiting around feeling like shit until the fuckup gets their head out of their ass?”

“Yeah. Pretty much.” Sean bit his lip, trying to hide a grin and failing. “This is how it goes. The boyfriend thing.”

Austin tried to imagine it. To figure out if the payoff was worth the uncertainty. As much as he’d never gotten what he wanted from his friendship with Vinnie, keeping his expectations low had come with the safety of not having the crashing lows that seemed to follow every ecstatic high.

“If it’s any consolation,” Sean said, “look how fast I got my head out of my ass this time. I think we’ll get to the point where we can end the fight before the other person storms out, you know?”

“You think?”

“I have total confidence in us,” Sean said, sitting on the edge of the bed and brushing his hand over Austin’s curls. “You’re a rock-star artist and I’m a rock geek. Think of all the pretty stones I’ll know how to find for you when you get into mosaics someday.”

Austin snorted. “Unlikely.”

“Well, it was all I could think of to offer.” Sean smiled at him and Austin pulled him down for a kiss that made his toes tingle.

“Don’t be an idiot. That’s what the sex is for.” But the words were too sharp for the new tenderness he was letting back in his voice. He combed his fingers through Sean’s beardy scruff. “I want all the things you got on offer, Sean Campbell. And if we have to take turns waiting for each other, that’s okay. I want that too.”

Yes, the hugging was also equally awesome.

“You got a deal, brat.”

He stuck out his tongue and Sean sucked it into his mouth for a moment before letting Austin go. “Rock geek.”

It was gonna be perfect.

Epilogue

Sean parked himself on the bank of every river or lake the crew team raced on that spring, a silver thermos of hot chocolate leaning against his ankle as he bellowed out chants and cheers Austin could hear even above his own PA system on the boat.

The JV boat was killing it this year, so there was a lot to cheer for. And Sean whooped hardest whenever they won a race and Austin’s teammates dumped his ass in whatever lake or river they’d been rowing on.

Partway through the spring semester, Carlisle’s new cheer squad started showing up at the weekend regattas, drawing more than a few comments and stares. Austin liked to think it was because those guys were clearly fabulously cheering on the coolest sport on campus, but it probably had something to do with the leotards and sequins and knee-high white patent leather boots.

After Austin managed to clamber all the way onto the dock—because his teammates, those fuckers, pushed him back in the first time he’d tried to struggle out, and his jacket weighed fifty pounds when it was wet—Sean wrapped him up in a hug and congratulations and helped him warm up with a little judicious application of mouth-to-mouth.

“Congratulations, boyfriend.” Sean said those words a lot. Like, every day a lot. He was clearly still relishing the officialness of their status. Austin had accused him of being more interested in updating his Facebook status than paying attention to his real, live boyfriend.

Sean had blown him and refused to let him come until Austin admitted Sean was too cool for Facebook and only used Instagram.

Austin was highly in favor of the torture-by-sex method of winning arguments.

The only place he gave a damn about winning anymore was on the water anyway.

He stripped off his wet jacket and pulled the shoulder straps of his unisuit down until the top half hung around his waist, then took the dry T-shirt Sean handed him.

Excellent. His favorite.

The
Geologists Do It In the Dirt
tee was too big on him, but it made Sean smile whenever Austin borrowed it, so he didn’t give a damn.

“Stop looking at my junk,” Austin said as he shoved his shivering arms into Sean’s shirt. “The river is damn cold. That’s shrinkage.”

“I’m happy to warm you right up. Just say the word,” Sean murmured.

Austin whacked him on the arm, even though he knew none of his teammates could have heard.

“You guys had a great race. Vinnie killed it, huh?”

It was one of the things he loved most about Sean, how he always made sure to ask about Vinnie or to talk to him when they hung out in a group. Not in a rub-it-in-his-face kind of way. Not at all. Sean knew Vinnie was important to Austin and always would be. Therefore Vinnie was important now to Sean too. And always would be.

One of the things he loved about Sean…

The words hit a replay loop in Austin’s brain as he lifted his mouth for a kiss, Sean’s lips warm against his own chilled mouth.

Note to self. Need to tell Sean that bit.

He pictured the look he was damn sure would dawn on Sean’s face when Austin said it.

I love you.

“Yeah, he did. Hey, do you think he looks, like, weirdly tight with that one guy? The tall, built one, who looks really feminine though?” Austin wasn’t crass enough to point, but he figured that was enough of a description to go on.

“Babe, they’re all twirling batons. I think the feminine thing is an across-the-board descriptor. But yeah, I know who you mean. You think there’s something going on?”

Austin paused for a moment, because the thought had crossed his mind.

No way. Talk about a guy likely to give Vinnie’s dad a heart attack.

“Nah. I doubt it. But I’ll keep hoping. I still feel like I abandoned him, even though we see each other every day, you know?”

“I told you we can bring him camping with us if you want.”

Sean meant it too. He hadn’t hesitated the first time Austin had mentioned feeling bad about how little time he was spending with his friends once the weather warmed enough for the geology crew to start camping again. Sean and he usually arrived late, because Austin had races most Saturdays now—warmer weather meant the boats were back on the water too—but sometimes they’d stay an extra night, camping out just the two of them on Sunday night, if the campsite was easy enough to hike out of early Monday with their headlamps.

Austin had loved teasing Sean about how big a dork he looked with that headlamp strapped to his forehead.

At least, he’d loved it until Sean got Austin his own headlamp for Christmas. Austin loved it so much he’d taken to wearing his if he was walking across campus at night, which provoked more than one cry of, “Easy with the headlights, dude!” from students he’d cheerfully blinded.

In any case, Sean would have bought Vinnie his own headlamp if he thought it would make Austin feel better.

It still felt strange, being the focus of someone’s constant attention. Austin had flipped out once over the holidays, telling Sean to stop hovering over him via Skype and texts and Instagram. It was the exact opposite of the problem he’d anticipated and planned for, which was giving Sean some space when he finally got irritated at how underfoot Austin was. Somehow that worry never quite went away all the way.

Sean told him it would, someday.

After he told Austin to calm his tits and call him back when he was finished freaking out. Which Austin had done, bracing himself for a lecture that never came.

Sometime right around then, as they settled back into normal conversation and video sex via Skype, Austin realized that maybe they really were getting good at this couple thing.

By the time he’d arrived back on campus to spend twenty-four hours handcuffed to Sean’s bed—not literally, although Austin had proposed exactly that and figured he’d get his way sooner or later—he thought maybe they were getting great at the couple thing.

A semester of sex and arguments and making up and camping-camping had only made him more sure.

He tugged Sean to the edge of the dock where they could sit and dangle their feet in the water. The sun was setting on the river, pink-gold light sparkling on the rippled water and the tips of Sean’s beard. His friends’ voices rang in the background, happy chatter and a couple of shouts for Austin to get his lazy ass up to the boathouse for the rest of the equipment stowing.

He was coming, but first, just one thing…

“I have something to tell you,” he said, and the light shining off the river in Sean’s eyes as his boyfriend smiled was the go-ahead for the easiest confession Austin would ever have to make.

“Let me guess. Another showing that’s going to stress you out for the rest of the year? Or…you want to come stare at my dick again at the open session this week.”

“Nope.” Austin shook his head. Leaned in close. “Even better.”

Sean waited next to him, listening hard. Like always.

And Austin was suddenly nervous. Maybe he should have just let it slip out, like it was no big deal. They’d done all the hard work already, figuring out the long-term stuff. This shouldn’t be scary.

Right?

His mouth was dry. He forced himself to speak.

“I love you.”

Sean’s sudden, tight hug, hanging onto Austin like he’d never let him go and whispering
love you, love you too
over and over again, made it clear Austin could still be stupid about the relationship stuff sometimes. Made something else clear too.

All his waiting was over.

About the Author

Amy Jo Cousins writes contemporary romance and erotica about smart people finding their own best kind of smexy. She lives in Chicago with her son, where she tweets too much, sometimes runs really far and waits for the Cubs to win the World Series.

If you would like to find out when Amy Jo’s next release is available, you can sign up for her newsletter at
www.amyjocousins.com
, follow her on Twitter at
@_AJCousins
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. Thank you for reading!

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When it comes to love, go big or go home.

Bend or Break,
Book 3

Charles “Cash” Carmichael traded his high-rise condo and family-firm career for a job coaching soccer for Chicago’s inner city kids. He’s adjusting to living on minimum wage when his young cousin, newly out and running away from home, shows up on his less-than-luxurious doorstep.

Angsty teens definitely aren’t Cash’s thing. He needs local backup, and there’s only one name he can think of: Stephany Tyler. Back in the day, the bisexual Steph was the perfect friend with benefits until she fell in love with a woman.

To his relief, his former friend steps up to the plate. Soon, though, Cash finds himself feeling the familiar need to keep her in his bed, and in his life. But Steph, burned by the ex-girlfriend and by the absentee dad she’s been trying to connect with, won’t risk her heart again.

Good thing Cash believes in leaving it all on the field. If he can just convince Steph to get in the game, there’s a chance they can both win.

Warning: This book contains ex-friends with benefits crossing boundaries a second time, several steamy encounters on staircases, copious discussions about gay sex from a “straight” guy, a shout-out to magic buttons, and an especially memorable going away threesome.

www.amyjocousins.com/the-girl-next-door-bend-or-break-book-three